They are a bit wider than tall. My company just had a 700 series to test out for a few weeks and the keyboard was a bit different than most others (Dell, Lenovo, etc). I think it's to accommodate the larger touch pad while still staying in the 13.3" range without a huge bezel on the screen. Reply

You're right about the shorter height. I've owned the R835 for a few days now, I was worried about the keyboard at first, but find I can type at full speed just fine (its not cramped like netbook keyboards). The glossy keys do feel a bit different if I stop to think about it. The lack of volume/media keys may annoy some (laptop uses FN+# key combos for volume).

Are you having any problems with the Vertex 2? I've got an R705 (R700 series) and the two Sandforce-based drives I tested in the system had issues with sleep and hibernation. As far as I can tell, the Sandforce folks never fully fixed the compatibility issues of those drives with some popular hardware configurations.Reply

As a potential road-warrior laptop buyer in the coming months...which are the stunning HP models referenced as competitors for the new Toshiba machines? Any chance they pair a quad SNB with a higher resolution than 1366x768 in a 13-14 inch chassis? Otherwise, it's back to the Apple store and the thought of lugging around a 15 inch macbook pro.Reply

Definitely not your imagination. That said, a 13.3" screen in 16:9 aspect ratio is probably similar in screen area to the 12.x" laptops of yore. And the wider form factor makes it easier to fit a normal sized keyboard since you have a longer, narrower device. 13" and smaller laptops are probably the only places where the wide screen aspect ratio actually makes sense, due to keyboard dimensions. Now if only the standard resolution on most laptops wasn't so low...Reply

Why is the trackpad on the left? With all due respect to lefthanders, I would have thought that most people would find it easier to use a trackpad that's on the right, if it's not going to be in the centre.

It does seem that it's more or less in the middle of the alphabetic part of the keyboard, but that is still a weird position.

And why, oh why, don't reviews/previews of laptops mention WEIGHT? I have a 2.3kg clunker and a 1.3kg ULV, and that 1kg (2.2 lb) makes a huge difference. I don't expect these to be in the sub 2kg category, but if they were, they would be a lot more interesting. Unfortunately, I have no way of knowing from this article. It says "thin and light" but what does this actually mean?Reply